Local Food Bloomington

Local Food Bloomington is a place for conversation about local food in the Bloomington, Indiana area. Topics may include anything from Farmer's Markets, local orchards, community gardens, community food resources, Slow Food, Heirloom Gardens and gardeners, organic foods, wildcrafted foods, food preservation, organic gardening, etc.
http://www.greendove.net/localfood.htm

Thursday, November 15, 2018

Quilter's Comfort, L.A.O. Organics is a member if Indiana Grown featuring their certified organic nightshade free seasonings and herbal teas. Another local,Wilderlove
Farm, a family farm organically growing vegetables
on approximately 1/4 of an acre also became a member of Indiana Grown in October.

Indiana
Grown is a state initiative that promotes growers of
all types, food and beverage producers, sellers and
agritourism. Its members include a wide variety of farmers,
farmers markets, distributors, producers, processors,
wineries, breweries, artisans, as well as retailers,
grocers, hospitals, restaurants and more.

Quilter's Comfort is also a new member of Equity at the Table (EATT) - an easy-to-navigate database for food industry professionals
featuring only women/gender non-conforming individuals and focusing
primarily on POC and the LGBTQ community.

Saturday, October 06, 2018

Indiana Food Freedom

Indiana Senator Greg Walker announced that he will propose The Indiana Freedom in Homemade Food Contracting Act, also known as The Indiana Food Freedom Act, in the upcoming session of the Indiana State Legislature. The Indiana Food Freedom Act seeks to allow small-scale producers to make foods for sale in their home (or farm) kitchens, creating greater access for consumers to healthy, local foods. Additionally, advocates of the bill anticipate it will offer a boost to the agricultural economy and encourage sales for ranchers, farms, and home-based producers.

This bill will take a somewhat different approach from other food freedom bills in that it will require a formal, contractual agreement between the producers and consumers permitting the sale of foods prepared in unlicensed and uninspected private kitchens and farms. The contract will have to be signed and notarized, and there will be a one-week waiting period between the signing and any food exchanging hands. This requirement is presumably intended to address some of the common objections to food freedom bills by creating a barrier to so-called more casual transactions where consumers have not had time for significant thought before purchasing.

The Indiana Food Freedom Act is the latest legislative effort to strengthen Indiana’s local food system. In 2014 Indiana passed Senate Bill 179 (SB 179), known as The Poultry Bill, which expands on-farm poultry processing in the state; the bill also eliminated regulation from county health departments over poultry, rabbit, and egg sales direct to the consumer. Additionally, Indiana has legalized the on-farm slaughter and processing of rabbits and amended a regulation on wild pigs ensuring that heritage breed hog farmers are no longer a potential target of the law.

Importance of Food Freedom

Food freedom and cottage food laws are designed to free small-batch producers from the often arduous licensing requirements required of larger commercial operations, as long as they are selling direct to consumers. These laws recognize that direct producer-to-consumer transactions have a transparency and accountability that is not present when food is produced and distributed on a massive scale. Consider that all of the major recalls and large-scale outbreaks have occurred in the conventional system, under inspection by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), or their state agency equivalents. Re-connecting food producers and consumers and decentralizing our food system restores integrity and increases food safety in the long run.

Call to Action

If you live in Indiana, you can help this bill become a reality! Find out who your State Representative and Senator are at www.iga.in.gov. Then call their offices and urge them to support the food freedom bill in the upcoming legislative session. And stay in contact with their office throughout the session because building a relationship with your legislators is vital to successful, long-term change.

If you’re in another state and know of a good bill (whether it is to promote cottage foods, food freedom, raw milk, egg sales, or other), let us know! We’ll help spread the word and generate grassroots support for it. For members, FTCLDF also offers consultations on policy development and strategy.

YOUR FUND AT WORKServices provided by FTCLDF go beyond legal representation for members in court cases.Educational and policy workalso provide an avenue for FTCLDF to build grassroots activism to create the most favorable regulatory climate possible. In addition to advising on bill language, FTCLDF supports favorable legislation via action alerts and social media outreach.You can help FTCLDF by becoming a member or donating today.

Monday, September 03, 2018

Bloomingfoods matters.I’ve asked a few people to tell me a few good things about Bloomingfoods.Most of these folks have decades of experience with the Coop and are also member-owners of the store. I encourage you to share your own reasons why Bloomingfoods matters.

- Bloomingfoods and Coop was founded in 1975 and lay the foundation for the mega organics and bulk foods now being sold and consumed in Bloomington, Indiana and in most other communities across the nation.Everyone realizes that Bfoods is in a major shift time.What happens to the foundation of healthier foods truly depends upon the community of its members.Even if you have been hurt by some past experience, that is just it, a past experience.Let’s all grow on and up otherwise we step aside and allow mega corporation dollars to roll over the foundations of local foods in communities as it forces its way across the nation.

Those very same corporations that now have their own organic brands previously spent huge sums of money working to deflect and destroy coops, organic standards and GMO regulations for the healthy foods markets here and in other countries.

The Coop is a store that has played a roll in supporting some local growers and farmers and vendors and made the welfare of growers everywhere a priority.Bloomingfoods created educational and community opportunities fostering the understanding of healthy food for healthy people and communities.For decades Bloomingfoods has nurtured the seeds of sustainable community.

I asked a few folks to tell me a couple of good things and here is some of what was offered.

I appreciate Bloomingfoods because :

-- Bloomingfoods is locally owned, by its members. This is just one thing, or maybe two,

-- it's the one that matters most, and that no big chain can match

--it is earthy and offers community and a sense of belonging

-- there is so much for shoppers and members to like:

---I can buy favorite foods, even kombu from Japan!

--It is a store where you LOVE to run into friends

--of the fact that Bfoods is of the community, for the community

--the staff for whom this is more than a job

--the comforting scale of the buildings

-- I have seen little children grown up shopping with their parents and then take their

first jobs there

--of he bulk foods section

-- if I don't like something about Bloomingfoods, I have the power to try to change it

through the democratic process.How much power you have depends on whether

others agree with me, and how involved I'm willing to get. The decisions in national

chains are made who-knows-where, to profit the owners or shareholders; if it's

profitable to close a community's only natural-foods store, for instance, they'll do it.

--It matters that Bloomingfoods is owned and run by members of our community.

--that it is a welcoming place

--it is ours

--it is a welcoming safe place for my children

--the big variety of local and organic foods

--the affordable and delicious deli

--good food equals good health which equals longer life expectancy

--co-op is an opportunity to guide our youth in cooperative principles they may not

receive elsewhere in their education

--It is a place that has supported local growers and producers educating the larger

community regarding health and community benefits of locally grown food.

--that it helped educate this city to the amazing health benefits of food.

-- it has helped the community to develop an infrastructure toward sustainability.

-- it has the good old co-op feeling!

--of the fact that it connects personally to so many peoples’ story and a gem that you

can still come home to, though very different, you can still come home.

Bloomingfoods Coop has offered and continues to create employment opportunities that connects community through owner membership and education and this has been part of the national muscle that works to educate and obtain protective regulations regarding organics, GMO’s, Monsanto’s pesticides and food labeling.Our Coop has been invaluable in community building and local foods education in particular and the organization worked diligently with local groups and individuals to develop and strengthen our local Farmers Market, Tuesday and Wednesday Farmers Market as well as the Winter Farmers Market.

Bloomingfoods Coop is here because a small group of local people received a loan from a local because they found a need for good healthy organic and bulk foods.Cooperative membership has grown to more than twelve thousand member owners.These members and the community at large will decide what happens to the mother and father of organics, bulk and whole foods in Bloomington.

I hope that every small business is paying attention because this pattern of destroying or neglecting locally owned small businesses in favor of those with large purses is truly death to communities.Check out what membership means at Bloomingfoods Coop https://www.bloomingfoods.coop/members/

I want to believe that people in this and other community’s want more connections with their foods than a faceless corporation can ever give.I hope that the people here want stores that nurture and ultimately will try to stay within our community when times are tough.

I hope that you will share into the larger community your reasons for why Bloomingfoods matters.

Saturday, January 27, 2018

When given the choice, honey bee foragers prefer to collect sugar syrup laced with the fungicide chlorothalonil over sugar syrup alone, researchers report in the journal Scientific Reports.

The puzzling finding comes on the heels of other studies linking fungicides to declines in honey bee and wild bee populations. One recent study, for example, found parallels between the use of chlorothalonil and the presence of Nosema bombi, a fungal parasite, in bumble bees. Greater chlorothalonil use also was linked to range contractions in four declining bumble bee species.
Other research has shown that European honey bees have a very limited repertoire of detoxifying enzymes and that exposure to one potentially toxic compound -- including fungicides -- can interfere with their ability to metabolize others.
"People assume that fungicides affect only fungi," said University of Illinois entomology professor and department head May Berenbaum, who led the new research with postdoctoral researcher Ling-Hsiu Liao. "But fungi are much more closely related to animals than they are to plants. And toxins that disrupt physiological processes in fungi can also potentially affect them in animals, including insects."Continue Reading.

NOTE: The annual Local Food News Updatefood update is underway!
We hope that this is a great New Year for all creatures!

Saturday, July 15, 2017

7th annual National Heirloom Exposition on September
5, 6, 7 in Santa Rosa, California.
We are again seeking volunteers to help us spread the word. We need your
help especially if you live on the West Coast and would like to distribute
brochures to let people know about the expo, please email us atinfo@theheirloomexpo.com.
Please consider sharing the info with your garden groups, educational
organizations, churches, pure food societies, etc.

The National Heirloom Expo features three full days of nationally and
internationally acclaimed speakers that include Vandana Shiva, Ronnie Cummins,
Jeffrey Smith, Robert Kennedy, Jr., along with many more. More than 4000
varieties of local produce will by displayed. Purchase gardening
supplies, seeds, sustainable living goods, and so much more from 300 vendors.
The exhibit hall will be home to more than 150 heirloom related exhibits.

Please email us atinfo@theheirloomexpo.comand let us know how many brochures you can distribute to let more people know
about this exciting event.

Why send them photos and stories pertaining to your or
another’s garden.

Monday, June 19, 2017

The beauty of local food for body and appreciation is everywhere in richly colored flowers and ripening fruits! Each year greater numbers of people, young and old take to growing some of their own food with most throwing in a few flowers. They may grow in deep raised beds or in pots hight up on a second story balcony. Not only gardens but chickens. More and more when walking through neighborhoods you can expect to hear the soft clucking of hens or get glimpses of the small, uniquely designed chicken houses. Speaking of birds, Bloomington is now designated as a Bird City!

Summer definitely arrived early in Indiana. Many June plants are in resplendant glory, while others have already exited the scene, chickory is beginning a season of full on bloom, perrenial Butterfly Weed, Asclepias tuberosa, joins the color show with its dynamic orange! The early heat and many heavy storms has been a challenge to plants and local growers. One good thing thus far is that farmers have already had one early harvest of their hay fields.

So why the title? Read on.

“Monsanto and Bayer, Dow and Dupont, and Syngenta and
ChemChina. They control more than 65 per cent of global pesticide sales.
Serious conflicts of interest issues arise, as they also control almost 61 per
cent of commercial seed sales.”

Say no to GM mustard

There are formidable social, economic and environmental reasons why it
should not be cultivated

The manner in which the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC)
recently cleared the proposal for genetically modified (GM) mustard is
extraordinary to say the least. It makes a mockery of the commitment in the
Bharatiya Janata Party manifesto that “GM foods will not be allowed without
full scientific evaluation on the long term effects on soil, production and
biological impact on consumers”. The Prime Minister had delighted consumers by
lending his weight to the promotion of organic food. On the other hand, GM and
organic are completely incompatible.
The alluring promises of higher yield and lower pesticide usage which
induced many, including myself as Textile Secretary to the Government of India
in the 1990s, to welcome Bt cotton have now been belied. Despite increased
fertilisers and irrigation, the expectations of enhanced cotton yield have not
been realised. Most of the countries that have higher cotton yields than India
do not grow GM cotton. The package of promises sold to us did not reveal all of
this. If I had an inkling of the future at that time, Bt cotton would not have
been introduced in India.

Yields as a touchstone

We would now be foolish in accepting the yield promises of the GM variety of
mustard, a crop which is an integral part of every Indian’s food. Ab initio
the yield claims on which GM mustard has been cleared are not even remotely
reliable — being based on comparisons with 30-year-old cultivars, and not on
more recent high-yielding hybrids. The highest yields in mustard are from the
five countries which do not grow GM mustard — U.K.,
France, Poland,
Germany and Czech
Republic — and not from the GM-growing U.S.
or Canada (see
graph based on FAO data). If India
is desirous to increase its mustard yield rapidly and safely, this can be done
by adopting the practice of System of Mustard Intensification, for which
successful trials have been done in Bihar through a
World Bank project. Results showed higher yields and better income. All this
without the spraying of any toxic herbicides, which is the undisclosed story of
GM mustard.
GM mustard’s yield increase claims have been successfully challenged now,
prompting the crop developers and regulators to retract on that front — it is
another matter that many reports continue to claim that GM mustard will
increase yields.

Gaps in evaluation

There have been numerous severe deficiencies in the evaluation process of GM
mustard. The risks to health, environment and agriculture have not been
evaluated even through those inadequate tests which were conducted at the time
of Bt brinjal examination, though mustard is far more extensively grown and
consumed than brinjal.
HT (herbicide tolerant) GM crops have been condemned by a number of medical
professionals and other scientists for increasing chemical herbicide use,
leading to serious health conditions — at all stages, but most worryingly at
the foetal stage. A scientific report from Argentina
found a fourfold increase in birth defects and a threefold increase in
childhood cancers in HT soya areas. Shockingly, the GEAC has conveniently
omitted to have any herbicide-related studies. A small committee was
constituted to “examine” the safety dossier — the tests that were done and the
deliberations of GEAC were shrouded in secrecy. After a scathing order from the
Central Information Commission, the GEAC made a sham of public consultations,
through an opaque and perfunctory eyewash process.

The U.S. is
a prime example of a country which has galloped into the GM mode of
agriculture. Studies have shown a strong correlation between growth of GM
crops, the herbicides they promote, and diseases such as acute kidney injury,
diabetes, autism, Alzheimer’s and cancers in the past 20 years in the U.S.
Seventeen of the 20 most developed countries — including Japan, Russia, Israel
and most of Europe — refuse to grow GM crops. An unacceptable marketing trick,
that of promotion of a “swadeshi” GM, is being used to break down resistance to
GM crops in India’s vast market, ignoring that safety concerns are the same —
swadeshi GM or not.

Losses and pernicious effects

The GEAC had itself rejected a similar HT GM mustard proposal by Bayer in
2002. The same reasons apply now. A herbicide-tolerant crop promotes constant
exposure to a single herbicide — which eventually results in weeds becoming
resistant. Over 20 species of weeds in the U.S.
are now resistant to Monsanto’s glyphosate-based herbicide. As desperate
farmers tried to control these “superweeds”, there was a tenfold increase in
use of glyphosate in 16 years.

Monday, April 17, 2017

Hello and thank you for coming to this page. I hope that you will visit Local Food and read some of the news. We've titled this year as the year of Food Heritage - Opportunities and Choices. Because you are paying attention, you are aware of the importance of seeds, bees, water and other factors that directly impact the quality of our health and the environment. Yes, there is something every one can do to say YES to what remains of of our local, national and global food resources. We have the opportunity to support, develop and enrich regenerative and sustainable food systems. As eaters, it is our job to expect the healthiest food for everyone, because to be a great community or nation recquires healthy minds and bodies at every stage of life. Healthy food, air, soil and water systems are necessary because what is in the water, air and soil is in every bite we consume.

Since 2001 LOCAL FOOD BLOOMINGTON has been offering
information

on where we eat; community resources, regenerative gardening and food
news

that directly applies to the how, and the why of what we have available
on our

tables and how it connects each of us to our national and global food
systems.

“The nation’s
fiscal health is dependent upon the health of the next generation. When
we consider the cost of inaction in a matter of national security, lives
are at stake.” Debra Eschmeyer, Co-Founder of Food Corps